Linking the Learning- The 'Storm Event' questions below are examples that have appeared on Geog 1 past papers.

Describe the responses to one storm event in the British Isles you have studied.

With reference to one storm event in the British Isles that you have studied, discuss the impact of, and responses to the storm events.

Storms in the UK - Storms are extreme weather events. Stormy weather in the UK generally happens in the autumn and winter, with October been the prime month. They have the potential to pack a powerful punch particularly to western and northern coastal regions of the UK.

They are generally at their worst during the autumn, when the sea temperature is still warm enough to fuel powerful low-pressure cells.

The Cumbrian Flood (2009) - The maps below shows the general location of Cockermouth, Keswick and Worksworth - the main towns effected by the flood. The second map shows the bridges that were either closed or collapsed.​

Causes of the Cumbrian Flood - Before the Cumbrian flood of 2009 Philip Eden regularly criticised politicians and journalists for using the word "unprecedented" to describe weather which may have been unusual but which was far from unprecedented. For those in charge of maintaining the national infrastructure, in this case flood defences, it was the soft option because it allowed them - by invoking the unforeseeable - to divert responsibility for any failure.​This time, though, it's different. The rains which hit the Cumbrian mountains in November 2009 were most certainly without precedent in the instrumental record, and that goes back to 1844 in this particular part of the UK.The prolonged downpour was caused by a long-lasting flow of warm and very moist air which had originated over sub-tropical waters of the Atlantic. Such airflows occur frequently in the UK, especially in autumn and winter, and are known in the forecasting trade as "warm conveyors". The diagram below shows the main causes behind the downpour in November of 2009.​

​Each one of the above points (1-5) are slightly different, and a rare coincidence of factors is required to produce the exceptional quantities of rain which occurred between Wednesday evening (18th) and the early hours of Friday (20th) over the Lake District. On that occasion those factors included:

• A source region for this "warm conveyor" far south of the Azores, where the ocean is normally very warm. The air in contact with it would also be warm and humid; indeed, the warmer a mass of air is, the greater quantity of moisture it can hold. I can only recall one or two previous examples of an airflow originating so near the tropics in three decades of forecasting.

• Sea temperatures in this source region were some 2°C to 3°C above the November average, enhancing the potential absorption of moisture by the airstream. This is the only aspect of the downpour which climate change may have contributed to, but it should also be said that large parts of the north Atlantic, especially in middle latitudes, have been colder than normal this month.

• Unusually strong winds in the warm conveyor, bringing the warm and moist air more rapidly to the UK with consequently less modification from the cooler waters around Britain; these winds also constantly refreshed the supply of moist air so that the system was not able to "rain itself out". In effect, the stronger the flow is, the more efficient is the rain-making process.

• The fact that the warm conveyor got stuck over Cumbria for a period of 34 hours, which, although not in itself unusual, maintained the steady downpour over a long enough period to build up such exceptional quantities of water. Snowdonia, Galloway, and Dumfriesshire were also badly hit, but in these regions the rain did not last quite as long.

The geography of Cumbria itself enhances the amount of rain that falls within its confines, as warm, moist air has to rise over the mountains, cools as it rises, and is forced to drop much of its moisture as it cools.

So, the Lake District is a naturally very wet part of the country, and the hamlet of Seathwaite in Borrowdale is, on average, the wettest inhabited place in England with a mean annual rainfall for the standard reference period 1971-2000 of 3,400mm.

In the week before the flood occurred 500mm of rain was recorded which meant that the lakes of the Cumbrian mountains where almost full and the soils saturated.

The prolonged steady downpour which triggered the flooding began on Wednesday 18th and ended on Friday 19th November - In that 48 hour period there was 395.6mm of rain, (source). The diagram below shows both the 24 and 48 hour rainfall totals for November 2009.​

The PowerPoint below contains slides that show how the rainfall flowed to rivers as overland flow as there was little infiltration as the soils were saturated.

Impacts and Responses to the Flood -​ Record rainfalls were recorded in the county as the rivers, streams and becks spilled into homes and businesses. Emergency relief centres catered for hundreds of displaced people. Cockermouth and Keswick were worst affected, but many other communities across. The video below is an animation of the extent of the flood in Cockermouth.​​

A Diary of Events - The Flood diary below is taken from the BBC article 'Cumbrian Floods 2009' - to read the full article click here.​​

The extracts below show how the story developed day to day​..........​

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Cockermouth - On the afternoon (1400) of the 19th the river starts to overtop its flood defences and water flows through the centre of the town.

​Overall 1300 properties were inundated and 1400 people have been affected. The water level was so high that during the night 200 residents had to rescued by the police, fire services, the RNLI and RAF using helicopters, lifeboats and wading chest-deep in water. The video below shows aerial footage of the flood and interviews with local residents.

​At around 4.40am, a stone bridge leading into the town of Workington, which sits at the mouth of the River Derwent collapsed into the surging river beneath, taking a police officer with it.

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​​A Cockermouth School and the Sheep and Wool Centre in the town were used to provide temporary accommodating for about 75 people.

​A casualty bureau was opened for people to report concerns about family member who have not been seen​

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​In Cockermouth 70 people spend another night in temporary accommodation.

Authorities and the army started to inspect the 1800 bridges affected by the flood waters for structural damage.

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Police allowed 900 local residents to return to their homes in Cockermouth.

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​Just 4 days after the flood a Flood Recovery Fund was set up by the Northwest Regional development Agency (NWDA). With 217 businesses been helped immediately.

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Electricity is restored to homes not directly effected by the flood waters.

People involved in essential recovery work asked to attend a special vaccination session in Cockermouth.

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​A temporary railway station north of the River Derwent was opened to reconnect the two sides of the Workingham. A free hourly service is then provided from the new station to take passengers to the existing station on the south side of the river.

It was designed to help residents on the north side who faced long detours to reach the town centre or local schools and supermarkets.

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​The bridge re-united the 'divided' town allowing children to go to school without suffering a long bus journey. The government authorised the army to build a temporary footbridge across the river Derwent at Workington. The work was completed in 4 just days and opened on Monday. To see a time-lapse video of how it was built click here.

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​The local council announced that Flood-hit householders in Cockermouth would pay 50% less for their council tax until their homes become completely habitable again or until 31 March 2011.

Longer Term Impacts and Response - The impacts of the flood were still effecting local community many months or even years after the flood waters had receded.​

Homes and Communities - Considerable progress has been made in repairing flood-damaged homes. The Cumbrian Recovery Fund provided significant financial help (£774 per household) to hundreds of homeowners faced with costly repairs to flood-damaged properties.

It took residents in Cockermouth on average, six months to move back into their homes. By November 2010 between 85 - 90% of residents from the 691 flood damaged homes had returned permanently. However, a year about 30 houses still remain uninhabitable.​After the flood residents found it almost impossible to finding insurance for commercial and residential properties. While some shops are still getting affordable cover, for others the price has become too steep. Local broker Philip Jackson, the town's main commercial insurance broker, said the market has "hardened dramatically" in recent years, and that many of the town's shops are in effect stuck with their existing insurer. In some cases they have had to opt for no flood cover because it was too expensive, he says, It has been a similar, rather mixed position for householders. Sue Cashmore, who lives in the Gote area of the town, and is the chair of the Cockermouth Flood Action Group, says some homes including hers have in effect become uninsurable. She's uniquely placed to know, having been flooded three times between 2005 and 2009, (source).In January 2010 the local council announced that Flood-hit householders in Cockermouth would pay 50% less for their council tax until their homes become completely habitable again or until 31 March 2011.

Health - NHS Cumbria has been closely monitoring the impact the floods have had on people’s mental health and wellbeing too. 198 people in the affected areas have sought psychological help in the last year through First Step, a service operated by Cumbria Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. The service offers support to people who may be experiencing mild emotional problems such as sleep problems, mild depression, or panic attacks. The majority of these referrals were either made by GPs for their patients or by people who selfreferred, because they needed someone to talk to.

In the area of health care, an enormous amount has been achieved in the last 12 months to ensure that services have been maintained. Cockermouth’s Derwent House GP surgery reopened in September after being temporarily relocated at the community hospital.

The Economy - By January of 2010 (2 months later), 78 of Cockermouth's 225 businesses were trading from their original premises and a year after the flood only 30 remained closed.

According to Cumbria County Council, the county's tourism businesses lost an estimated £2.5m due to the floods. A survey by Cumbria Tourism found that 72% of tourist businesses across the county suffered some negative impact because of the floods and 6% of tourist business closed down completely.

One year after the floods Cumbria Council estimated that repairs following the flood damage would cost at least £275 million. This figure included: £124m of damage to commercial property and businesses, £91m of damage to residential and other properties along with £7m of damage to two flooded GP surgeries.

Funds and Grants - On Tuesday 24th November Just 4 days after the flood a 'Flood Recovery Grant Scheme' is set up by the Northwest Regional development Agency (NWDA). The scheme provided immediate help to 217 local businesses and by December of 2010 over £1million had been paid out.

Disruption to Communications - In Cumbria 20 bridges were closed and 6 collapsed - as show by the map below. All of Cumbria's 1,800 bridges underwent safety inspections as a direct result of the serious weather conditions and unprecedented amounts of rainfall.

Two bridges that did collapse were a footbridge and the road bridge (Northside) at Workington. These had to be replaced with temporary bridges. The footbridge took a week to replace and a new road bridge was opened in April of 2010. A permeant road bridge was opened in September 2012 - some three years after the flood. ​​

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Future Flood Defences - In response to the devastation caused by the flood of 2009 a new flood monitoring station was built at Seaton Mill, Workington. This supplies more effective flood warnings to Workington and the nearby communities.

In January 2010 the Environment Agency removed 12,000 tonnes of gravel, plants and debris form the river near to Gote Bridge - this increased the channel capacity of the river.By 2013 nearly four years later, more than £4.4m has been spent on flood defence work in Cockermouth to help protect 360 vulnerable homes and 55 businesses prone to taking in water.

The agency has built new flood walls and fitted gates to protect homes in Waterloo Street and Graves Mill. Construction has also begun on an embankment along Derwent side Gardens where existing flood walls are being extended.

For example a first generation passive flood defence system provided a solution which would have little or no aesthetic impact on the environment and has the considerable advantage of not requiring any intervention during a flood warning - click here to see how and when this wall was built.

The Cockermouth Flood Action Group raised an estimated £420,000 towards the cost through a mixture of appeals and persuading the local authority to increase the council tax.

To see a 'walk around' tour of the new flood defences watch the below. Keep a carefully look out for the passive flood wall and how some of the houses have been retrofitted with features to reduce the impact of high water levels.

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Storm Desmond (2015) - In 2015 another storm event hit Cumbria and again Cockermouth was flooded.